All the Random Thoughts

The guard did not talk at first, but she seemed to have no problem filling in the silence by herself. She spoke of her land. The green fields and clear skies. Blue seas and warm sands. She told him about her horses and cats and strange creatures with worms for bodies and colourful wings that filled the gardens in spring.

Eventually he told her of his home. Grazing sheep and shepherd dogs and the little lake he would sneak out to swim in during the hotter months and skate in during the colder ones. They laughed and ate, and soon tea turned to breakfast and lunch and then even supper. He was no longer sure what the proper thing to do was.

“Come,” she would say, “they send much more food than I could possibly eat. It would just go to waste otherwise. And you just stand there besides.”

He did not voice that her food portions seemed to have doubled since he started joining her.

Then there were things that were not said. How she had not been permitted to even bring even a lady’s maid. How all her clothes were new, so different from the styles favoured in her lands. How she did not understand why there were so many layers or why women could not ride astride.

He had blushed crimson at that particular implication.

It was a month after she had first invited him in when he came in for tea and found his chair had been replaced with one that could comfortably fit the bulk of his armour.

She looked particularly smug when he sat down with a smile and a soft sigh.

.

The king did not visit her chambers. He had no use for her. He already had several heirs older than her from his late wife. He had married her for her dowry and land and a peace treaty that was more trade treaty than anything else.

The guard pretended not to notice this, as did everyone else. The castle guard also pretended not to notice the quiet moans and sighs he heard when he was covering for the night guard. Her culture was much more liberal in more ways than just riding astride, it seemed.

He did not hear rumours of other guards hearing the same, and guards were worse gossips than the kitchen maids, and the thought that she only did it with him made him blush like a green virgin boy of no more than fifteen.

So he pretended.

There was a public celebration for her birthday. The king might not have cared for her, but appearances must be kept. He gave her a chest of jewels and a fine horse as a representation of her culture. She did not care for the jewels.

The day after, she insisted on riding. As her personal guard, he would accompany her.

She restrained herself side-saddle only until they would no longer be seen by the palace walls; then she lifted her skirts to her thighs and sat astride like it was as natural as breathing.

She rode as if the wind and horse and earth were her friends. She let go of the reins to undo her simple braid and he was afraid she might topple at the speed she was going until he realised she controlled her horse with nothing more than her thighs like the most skilled horseman.

When she looked back to check he was still following, hair wild and eyes bright and smile wide, he knew he would follow her to the ends of the earth.

They stopped by the lake, where she dismounted with nothing more than a jump before he could offer his help, and they set about spreading a blanket and food and wine. She removed her shoes.

They raced back when it was time. She let him win and they stopped once again for her to braid her hair and sit sidesaddle.

She insisted she did not know how to re-braid her hair and if he would be so kind. He pretended to forget that she had offered to braid his own hair at the lake and helped.

She let him help her dismount when they reached the castle.

.

There was an illness spreading in the castle, and her servants were sick, and all of the others were too busy tending to the king. He was once again covering for her night guard when she asked him in to help. He entered, sword half drawn, expecting a bat or mouse or some other unsavoury creature that had entered from the window, but instead found her candles already lit and her facing her vanity undoing her elaborate hair.

His confusion turned to pure heat when she asked for his help undoing the small buttons down the back of her dress.

He savoured every button like a last meal then bowed and left as if he had been burnt.

The next day, she insisted they go riding. At the lake, she undid her more simple dress and clothes and jumped in before he could think to stop her.

‘Come now,’ she said to with that smile, ‘the water is so warm.’

He resisted only until she dived under the water again and then he was stripping faster than she had and chasing her with laughter.

When they finally kissed, it felt like the world shifted, and when he laid her down on the blanket, gently taking her hands to twine with his, her wedding ring sparkling on her fourth finger, she assured him that she was no blushing maiden.

And then she showed him exactly why the women of her lands like to ride astride.

They were not careful, on that night or any other. She did not have the herb her land used to prevent accidents, nor did she know where to acquire it. He did not know of any such herb in this land. They were not careful.

Her guard stopped coming, and she knew something was wrong. She pretended not to notice and invited every guard posted at her doors in to take their meals with her. They did not respond, as if they were nothing more than marble statues with colour.

She did not go riding.

A fortnight later, when concern turned to fear as she missed her cycle, her guard was returned to her. His lip was healing from a split, his jaw the sickly yellow of a fading bruise, and he walked with a limp that was easy to miss if she did not know him.

He did not look at her.

He did not speak to her.

Another marble statue at her door.

She insisted on riding the next day, and he obliged her.

He helped her set up the blanket and food, then stood guard a few paces off.

“I’m pregnant.”

It took only two words to have him crumble to his knees in front of her. He held her hand in wonder and joy and then she burst into tears and he held her as they cried together for an uncertain future. A dangerous future. Or no future at all.

They cried until there were no tears left, and he held her until they had no choice but to go back.

They entertained the idea of running away together to a land where they could start anew as a simple farmer and his wife and their wonderful child.

They made plans to do just that in a fortnight.

.

The maids noticed she had not bled. The maids always noticed such things, and so the king was informed, as husband kings always are.

The first time the king visited his bride in her chambers, she was in nothing but her sleeping shift, with her hair down, waiting for her love.

He did not ask but simply told her that there would be a healer and a physician with her in the morning to take care of the issue.

She was not given a chance to respond before he was striding out.

The guards posted at her doors were not her guards, and the ones under her windows prevented any mischief she might have gotten up to.

The next day, she was forced to the bed, a tisane poured down her throat and her legs spread for the procedure.

After, she was given another tisane and told to rest on the clean sheets they had replaced.

She did not cry. Her guard did not visit her. Not for hours or days or weeks.

.

Her maid woke her early and dressed her in black. She was escorted to the throne room by guards who refused to meet her eyes and then joined the king to the tombs underneath the castle.

Her guard, she was told, had fought bravely against the attackers at the border but unfortunately did not make it. His bravery earned him a proper knight’s burial.

That was when she cried. Lunged at the still body covered in a white sheet and was held back by several hands. The king ordered for the sheet to be pulled back for a proper service, and when it was, everyone but the queen took a step back in horror at the sight of the gleaming white bone and sword of their fallen brother.

Bones so white it was as if they had been buried for centuries. Gleaming as if they had been polished

The queen laughed. And laughed. And laughed. Remembering stories that her mother told her of ancestors and witches and love and curses.

Then she faced the king.

“You have killed the love and beloved of one whose blood is more ancient than your precious kingdom. I hope you are ready for the consequences.”

The article, of course, does not focus on accounts that are explicitly couple accounts. It speaks on how there is a general decrease in women posting about any partner that might or might not be new, and even when posting, the increase in what can be perceived as privacy concerns. The pictures with the emojis over the partner’s face, the videos where the partner is out of frame and only their voice can be heard, and the angle work used so that only a quarter of their partner’s face is in the shot, if any at all.

As a social media user in 2026, I understand the privacy concerns, of course. Just because you as an adult woman have made a career out of putting yourself out into the vast world that is the internet, does not mean your closest friends and family should as well, and this includes the person you’re madly in love with, and who, hopefully, is madly in love with you too.

With the observed decrease in couples’ content, Joseph investigated and sited several potential reasons for the shift, some of which include:

People were tired of consuming content where women did not seem to have lives outside of the man they were involved with;

Some women are superstitious. The evil eye can do wonders for breaking up a relationship before you even realise what hit you;

Some women genuinely do not trust their men not to do or say something to embarrass them, even if they have been together for years.

The third reason, I think, is the one that people took and ran with, especially those that only saw the headline, and did not, in fact, read the full piece. And for a lot of them, they had some pretty excellent points to make.

We’ve all seen the videos of women coming on the internet to the defence of their men after they had posted a video in which their partner had committed a serios crime against their relationship and the comment section, rightly, called him out on it.

I’m talking putting dog food in your wife’s work lunch; I’m talking making a complete mockery of your wedding vows, I’m talking pranks like smashing a bride’s face into the wedding cake after being specifically asked not to, or dropping her in a pool in her full wedding regalia, and I’m talking describing your partner as ‘some bitch’ when asked how you would describe your fiancée.

It was painful to watch, and, as most people were quick to comment, absolutely embarrassing that you as a woman:

Accepted this treatment and stayed;

Thought it was charming enough to post on the internet; and,

Came to your man’s defence when the internet was outraged (on your behalf, mind you).

All of these things are embarrassing. Imagine having to come on the internet and insist with your audience that your husband putting dog food in with your work lunch ‘was just the way the two of you joke together’ and ‘he didn’t mean it that way.’

It’s absolutely and utterly humiliating.

And in our desperate attempt to make sure that everyone knew we were women who have ‘successfully decentred men’ in our lives (a notion that, in my humble opinion, is an impossible paradox when we live in the patriarchal society that we do), we have swung so far in the other direction it’s almost like nuance is not, nor has it ever been, in the room with us.

Now, not only is it embarrassing to go around posting your male partner, it’s also almost just as embarrassing to admit to liking couples’ content on social media.

We have ‘decentred men’, and in the process made it so that any genuine affection shown falls into the category of cringe or irony.

Women have entire platforms now talking about how to manipulate the affections and love out of a man (if that is what you even want of course), and how to always remain less invested, less vulnerable, and less committed so that you can walk away first with no heartbreak.

In the famous words of Off Campus character Garrett Graham, “Stop acting like a fangirl, and start thinking like a f**k boy.”

Except, that’s bad advice.

And it’s proven to be bad advice when Hannah, to whom the advice was given, chooses an emotionally profound relationship with Garrett himself over the shallow connection she had made with Justin, even though up until that point she had wanted Justin so badly that she was willing to follow Garrett’s convoluted plans to get him.

And the only reason she was able to build that emotional connection was because they were both nothing but committed to each other: committed to helping each other, supporting each other, being there for each other, and, eventually, being a good friend for each other.

There was no ‘one foot out the door to lessen heartache’ with them, because people don’t do that with friends. In fact, it is widely considered as an absolutely unhinged thing to do in friendship.

There is no way to build any sort of real connection when all you are thinking about the entire time is not being embarrassed, because being embarrassed is an essential part of being vulnerable, which is essential to building the type of love we’re all too embarrassed to admit to wanting.

So, yes, in that regard, having a boyfriend is always embarrassing.